After early stumble, Navasota crushes Liberty Hill to make 4A state title game

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WACO Liberty Hill smelled an upset until Navasota's record-smashing offense seized the night.

Behind quarterback Shelton Eppler, the Rattlers overcame an early 14-0 deficit to defeat the Panthers 49-26 in a Class 4A Division I state semifinal Friday at McLane Stadium.

Navasota (15-0) will play the winner of the semifinal between Argyle and Graham in the state championship at 4 p.m. Friday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Liberty Hill (12-3) might have come up short of its goal, but the Panthers had the state's top-ranked team on the ropes for a half. Navasota outscored the Panthers 28-0 in the second half.

"We just couldn't make first downs (in the second half)," Liberty Hill coach Jerry Vance said. "We thought if we could get first downs and keep the clock moving, that gave us our best opportunity."

Eppler, entering the game with 61 touchdown passes, threw scoring passes of 83, 65, 74, 50, 5 and 17 yards. He finished with 456 yards and capped the scoring with a 10-yard run in the fourth quarter

Baylor-bound receiver Tren'Davian Dickson set a national record when he caught his 35th touchdown of the season, a 65-yard play in the third quarter.

"You could see the fight in our team's eyes," Navasota coach Lee Fedora said. "They knew this would be a smash-mouth football game but they made the necessary adjustments at halftime for us to win."

Fedora reminded his players in a post-game huddle that "our job isn't done yet." He told the players he was part of an A&M Consolidated football team that went 14-0 in 1989 before losing in the state championship game.

"To this day, that sticks in my side," Fedora said.

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After early stumble, Navasota crushes Liberty Hill to make 4A state title game

Libertarian joins race for Ernst's senate seat

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A Libertarian candidate is among the crowd seeking the Iowa Senate seat vacated by U.S. Sen.-elect Joni Ernst.

Don Brantz, a longtime Mills County supervisor and southwest Iowa social worker, has filed as a candidate for the Dec. 30 special election in Iowa Senate District 12 the states largest which represents Taylor, Ringgold, Page, Montgomery, Mills and Fremont counties.

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Libertarian joins race for Ernst's senate seat

Mysterious Islands in the Sky Unlock Secrets of Our Past: "Return to the Tepuis – Video

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Mysterious Islands in the Sky Unlock Secrets of Our Past: "Return to the Tepuis
Mysterious towering tepuis in South America have been the inspiration for movies such as Avatar and Up, and Arthur Conan Doyle #39;s novel The Lost World. In this short film adventure from Pongo...

By: National Geographic

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Mysterious Islands in the Sky Unlock Secrets of Our Past: "Return to the Tepuis - Video

China refutes Vietnam's claims over islands in South China Sea

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BEIJING: China has dismissed Vietnam's sovereignty claim on the disputed islands in the South China Sea, saying it is "illegal and invalid" and Beijing "will never accept such claim."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei made the comment later yesterday after Vietnam's foreign ministry said Hanoi held sovereignty over the Spraley and Paracel islands which China calls Nansha and Xisha islands.

Vietnam objected to China's stance of the nine-dash line claiming most part of the South China Sea.

Vietnam stated its position to the Arbitral Tribunal on the South China Sea Arbitration initiated by the Philippines under the UN Convention on Law of Seas (UNCLOS).

China refused to join the arbitration, saying the dispute should be resolved directly by the parties concerned.

The tribunal has given time till December 15 for China to respond to Philippines petition.

While Philippines took the dispute to international arbitration, China-Vietnam had a major crisis in May this year when Beijing pressed in an oil rig in the disputed islands leading to anti-China riots in Vietnam in which two Chinese workers were killed and over a 100 injured.

China pulled out over 7000 workers from Vietnam for safety. Later, the two countries patched up and agreed to normalise the relations with high level visits.

Hong said China holds indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and the surrounding waters while the Xisha Islands have been China's inherent territory, without any dispute on this.

In 1948, the Chinese government published an official map that displayed the dotted line in the South China Sea.

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China refutes Vietnam's claims over islands in South China Sea

Current practices in reporting on behavioural genetics can mislead the public

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Media reports about behavioural genetics unintentionally induce unfounded beliefs, therefore going against the educational purpose of scientific reporting, writes the University of Montreals Alexandre Morin-Chass, following his study of 1,500 Americans. Among other things, we wanted to know if the public understood (or misunderstood) popular science articles about a new research field, genopolitics, and whether this popularization indeed helped people have an informed opinion on human genetics, Morin-Chass explained.

The study participants first had to read a news article about research on the influence of a gene on one of the following three traits: breast cancer, political ideology (liberal or conservative), or the tendency to go into debt. After reading the article assigned to them, they were then asked to estimate the influence of genetics on various biological (e.g., hair colour, height) or behavioural (e.g., violence, alcoholism) traits on a scale from 0% genetic to 100% genetic. They were told that there were no right or wrong answers. The purpose of the study was simply to examine the interpretation of facts.

The conclusions were troubling, to say the least. Morin-Chass observed that after reading an article published in the British Daily Telegraph in October 2010 about a "gene responsible for liberal ideas, the readers tended to generalize the influence of genetics to other behaviours or social orientations of which there was no mention in the news article (including sexual orientation and intelligence). The same phenomenon was observed among the readers of the other article, originally published in the Scientific American Mind magazine in June 2010, which associated a gene with susceptibility to debt.

However, public misunderstanding is not the only thing to blame for this misinterpretation. Generally, science reporters first goal is to inform the public about scientific developments. However, this practice is not disinterested; some news is purposely written in a manner intended to catch the publics attention with startling results in order to increase or to maintain market shares," Morin-Chass explained.

Genetic research into behaviour is certainly a minefield. It is often associated with other more controversial theoretical work, for example, in sociobiology, which attempts to explain social inequalities using the theory of evolution and the concept of natural selection. In contrast, current trends in research are based on empirical analysis of DNA data.

"Personally, I am in favour of this innovative approach to better understand our world, but I cant argue with the facts: the field is often misunderstood or even disregarded, Morin-Chass said. Some reduce it to its most deterministic form. The danger, which, in my mind, is present, is that scientific research findings could be manipulated for ideological purposes by certain social groups. Hence the importance of making sure the public understands the scope and limitations of such research.

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The above story is based on materials provided by Universit de Montral. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Current practices in reporting on behavioural genetics can mislead the public